“There’s a time period coined by a thinker in 2008, solastalgia, to explain the sensation of homesickness whenever you’re already residence,” mentioned Monique Coombs, director of group applications for the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Affiliation, referring to the work of the Australian environmental thinker Glenn Albrecht. “Individuals have been already feeling that manner, as privatization and gentrification change these communities, after which to even have this destruction from storms solely provides to these emotions of grief.”

Gov. Janet Mills declared a state of emergency in eight coastal Maine counties on Thursday, and surveyed injury on the coast on Friday, as cities started to catalog losses anticipated to be within the thousands and thousands.

Among the many best-known websites to endure injury have been the century-old Shore Path in Bar Harbor and Pemaquid Level lighthouse in Bristol, depicted on the Maine commemorative quarter. Boatyards misplaced tools in harbor-side machine retailers; a few of the state’s 4,000 to 4,500 lobstermen misplaced a whole lot of traps.

The storm on Wednesday drew its energy from a harmful confluence of wind route and timing, mentioned Derek Schroeter, a meteorologist with the Nationwide Climate Service in Grey, Maine. Gusting onshore winds peaked near excessive tide, producing a dramatic surge in ocean waters that ranked among the many highest ever recorded in some places.

“The waves got here up below the wharves, picked them up and dropped them some place else,” Ms. Coombs mentioned.

There have been experiences of washed-out roads and battered boat landings throughout the coast from Portland east to Rockport, Hancock, Castine and Cutler. Winds gusted as much as 79 miles per hour in Kittery, Mr. Schroeter mentioned, and as much as 95 miles per hour on Isle au Haut, an island in Penobscot Bay that comprises parts of Acadia Nationwide Park.

On Saturday, nonetheless extra injury was anticipated from one other storm set to rake the Northeast with excessive winds and heavy rain once more. Its timing can be even worse, mentioned Mr. Schroeter — peaking round noon, at excessive tide, its surge was forecast to set a file of 14.3 toes in Portland, besting the longtime excessive of 14.17 set in February 1978.

Flooding from the second storm is a significant concern, he mentioned, as a result of erosion in coastal areas on Wednesday left them much less secure and extra weak.

“I believe everyone goes to be holding their breath,” Ms. Coombs mentioned.

In Stonington, Maine’s prime lobster port and residential to greater than 300 fishing boats, the bridge and causeway that join Deer Isle to the mainland have been closed for hours throughout Wednesday’s storm as cresting waves pounded and weakened sections of street. State crews moved quick on Friday to attempt to fill in gaps with unfastened stone and boulders within the transient lull between storms, mentioned Linda Nelson, financial and group improvement director for the city of 1,000 folks.

The city has drafted detailed plans to mitigate predicted sea-level rise within the warming Gulf of Maine, she mentioned, pursuing funding to lift low-lying roads and piers and make different modifications. However such work takes time, she added, and with each storm, the checklist of wants grows longer and extra pressing.

“We’ve been getting ready, however we simply can’t transfer quick sufficient,” Ms. Nelson mentioned. “It’s ironic, as a result of through the pandemic, we bought an inflow of local weather refugees, and now we’re like a poster little one for local weather change.”

Together with a rising perception in local weather change, she mentioned she had additionally seen a rising fatalism in her a part of Maine.

“I consider there are issues we will do,” she mentioned. “However I believe lots of people don’t.”